During extended ground maintenance times, various protective devices are commonly installed to prevent damage to instrumentation and/or structural damage to the aircraft. Representatives are pitot tube covers and landing gear locks pins.
Pitot tubes are used on aircraft for measuring speed and altitude. They are sensitive and delicate, and thus prone to damage during maintenance, and storage. To limit damage and contamination, the pitot tube covers are installed during any appreciable outdoor layover to prevent dust, particulates, water, and other foreign matter from entering the probe ports, all of which can contribute to erroneous outputs. Equally important to installation during layover is the need to remove the pitot tube covers prior to flight. Should they remain in place during flight, there are no effective procedures for removal and the instrument's assessment of speed and altitude are severely compromised. Accordingly and, as a matter of standard operating procedure, if not removed the plane must return to base for cover removal. Inasmuch as the plane may have departed with a full fuel load, landing under such high loading conditions can create substantial forces that can damage the airframe or otherwise affect structural integrity. It would therefor be desirable to provide an apparatus and procedure for assuring the removal of pitot covers prior to flight.
The landing gear lock pins are installed to disable the landing gear retracting system to prevent inadvertent actuation during maintenance and/or ground operations that could collapse the nose wheel and structurally damage the aircraft. As with the pitot tube covers, the pins must be removed prior to flight, and if not removed, the plane must return to base with the resultant unnecessary expense and potential structural damage from a full weight landing.
While there are established procedures for removing the covers and lock pins, human error nonetheless continues to produce non-compliant flights. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a maintenance product that would further reduce the chances of the covers and lock pins remaining on the aircraft at takeoff.